Sonia Gandhi's family involved in chopper scam: Subramaniam Swamy

Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Sunday alleged that the UPA Government doesn't want the truth behind the alleged corruption in Agusta Westland deal to come out because Congress president Sonia Gandhi's family is involved in the deal.

"The scam is not surprising for me. Another chopper was selected in the beginning of the deal, but citing some technicalities, they changed the company. It was only for the commission, and the Nehru-Gandhi family has acquired the most part of the commission. About half of the total money has gone to Sonia's two sisters in Italy," said Swamy.

"You see, wherever the Nehru-Gandhi family is involved, corruption occurred. No incident of bribery or corruption took place during the tenure of late Prime Ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Morarji Desai," he added.

Reacting to the Italian court's refusal for sharing information and documents, Swamy said: "Naturally the court will not share the information like this. The CBI should have to first gone to a court here and obtained a letter seeking information or documents. The Italian court will be bound to share information after that letter. But, the government is not serious, they are investigating in the matter just for the sake of investigation."

According to media reports, the Italian court, which is hearing the case of alleged corruption in deal, has informed the Indian embassy in Rome on Saturday that the investigation is at an initial stage and the documents can only be shared with the parties in the case, arguing that the information is covered by secrecy.

The Defence Ministry has directed the CBI to probe the matter and two officials from the CBI will also be visiting Italy.

The copter scam has unfolded with the arrest of the head of a state-controlled Italian aerospace company.

Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi, who was arrested on Tuesday in Rome, had been under investigation for months and had denied any wrongdoing in the deal for the sale of 12 AgustaWestland helicopters to India in 2010.

AgustaWestland, the Italian firm. is presently at the centre of a controversy over allegations of paying kickbacks in the Rs 3600 crore VVIP chopper deal. (ANI)